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Triangle Corner Trick

October 25, 2010

I was piecing these blocks with triangle corners (like the corners in this block) yesterday and thought I would share a quick trick. Usually a pattern (including my own) will recommend drawing a pencil line from corner to corner on the wrong side, and sewing along the line. Like this one:

But since I’m a hurried sewer and drawing little lines on 160 squares doesn’t sound like super fun, this is what I do instead:

Place a piece of tape so that edge is in line with the needle of your machine.

When you are sewing on your squares, start in one corner, and keep the opposite corner on that tape edge to keep the seam line straight.

When your done you’ll have a nice straight line from corner to corner, without having to draw gagillions of little pencil lines. Keep in mind though that the smaller the square the easier it is, it might be a little harder to keep a perfectly straight line with bigger squares.

After trimming and pressing the corner should look like this:

Tricky huh? I learned this from my Mom. I always wondered why she had painters tape stuck to the front of her machine….now we know.

Great tip! The quilt shop where I first learned how to quilt recommended that if we were having trouble keeping a 1/4 inch SA. Works great for these triangles, since I agree, who wants to draw all those lines! We want to get to the piecing and quilting part, right?!

Yay thanks for this tip!! I'm so lazy when it comes to pinning and drawing, so this is a great tip for me! Painters tape is also good if you don't like pinning – I just stick it to one corner to stop the pieces moving. It loses it's stick reasonably quickly, but you only need a tiny bit and it's so much faster (and less hazardous LOL…) than pinning.

I love this trick! My addition to it is that I usually now will sew another seam about 3/8" away from the first one, but them apart with a very scant 1/4 inch seam, and then I save all those list squares to put into charity quilts/mini-quilts/other projects (especially if I'm chain piecing, since I can just run them all through the machine in line again, using my existing seam line as my guide (and my 1/4 inch foot is a little wider on the left, so it works pretty perfectly.) Probably silly, but I read a blog entry about getting extra charity quilts from scraps, and despite the fact that I have too much fabric and need to use it up, I've become a bit obsessed with reducing waste. Anyway, I thought I'd share (and at the same time thank you for this great tip – it has made my sewing speed up considerably)!

I am new at quilting and I am right now gathering a lot of information/tips as to how to make quilting fun instead of work. I want to thank you for this tip. I hope you do not mind me asking this question, if I folded my square in half, finger press it or iron it once folded in half would that not give you a straight line to sew on? As I said I am new to this so if it's a silly question, I will laugh with everyone eles, LOL!

Thank you for getting back to me so quickly!!! I will file your tip away and be sure to use it with my first quilt. I love your blog and all of your great projects. I am looking forward to learning from you and referencing your blog frequently!! I am so happy I found you today!!! Happy quilting!